cliff edges
by Anrheithwyr
Summary: Over the Christmas holidays, the Marauders and friends decide to have a little fun with James' stash of Firewhiskey and go on an adventure, but Peter is worried that someone might get hurt.


It had been the sort of thing they had all been in agreement on, until everything went absolutely, totally wrong.

Sure, no one had really considered death to be a truly possible result, because we were young and dumb and reckless, and I suppose that doing dumb reckless things was just in our nature.

We had planned this out ages ago, and everything was rather conveniently falling into place; Sirius had convinced a couple of girls that hanging around at the Potter manor was the best place to hang out over the holiday, where there would be plenty of free cocoa and enough hot boys to at least keep them interested.

(Obviously, no one was placing _me _into the "hot boys" category, but it wasn't like I had never realised that the girls at school aren't as interested in me as they are the rest of my dorm mates.)

Of course, _cocoa _hadn't been the only thing available to us, since Mr. and Mrs. Potter were in France over the holidays and had left James behind.

It had taken, at most, an hour before someone pulled out several bottles of aged Firewhiskey, and very quickly, things began to spiral into the sort of fun that only comes with being buzzed.

I don't quite remember who had first brought up the fact that there were cliffs not too far away from where the Potters resided, but to a bunch of slightly intoxicated teens, cliff jumping in December seemed like a fantastic idea.

We headed down the road to the cliffs, and I looked around, making sure everyone had followed us, though I don't think anyone would be crazy enough to _not _follow Sirius anywhere.

James and Sirius were heading up the front, with Sirius' girlfriend of the moment, a needy Hufflepuff Annette Glenn, hanging off of his arm, drunkenly trying to kiss him.

Marlene McKinnon and Mary McDonald were holding hands as we walked, with Lily Evans trailing just behind, scowling and reminding everyone that, _as a not-totally-drunk person_, this all seemed very dumb and dangerous.

Remus, who had only had a little alchohol but was a bigger lightweight than I was, was giving me a lazy grin, commenting on the fact that his arms were cold, mumbling about how glad he was that he wasn't spending the holidays at home again.

I hadn't been drinking very much, since my alcohol tolerance was very low, but my mind was still fuzzy as I focused on putting one foot right in front of the other as we walked, thankful when Lily circled back around to put her hand on my arm.

Behind us, Shelly Malbey, the fifth girl from Gryffindor in our year, was stumbling along drunkenly and we moved to help her, Lily on one side and me on the other, helping to keep her straight as we moved up the roads leading to the cliffs.

"Is it such a good idea to be visiting such a potentially dangerous place when most of these idiots are nearly intoxicated off their asses?" Lily asked me, but I only shrugged.

When the idea of us actually getting up and going up here had been seriously considered, no one had argued against it, back at the Potter manor, but now that Lily was finally bringing up this important question, I couldn't help but wonder if our little excursion would end up as fun as we had hoped it would.

When we finally reached the cliffs, I saw James and Sirius hovering near the edge, laughing and showing off to the girls how close they could stand without falling off.

"I don't like this," Lily mumbled to me as we helped Shelly sit down, and I looked over to where they were standing, with Annette, Marlene, and Mary crowding around them.

Remus was nowhere to be found.

I peered around the area for Remus, and was considering calling his name; what if he'd fallen off? What if something had happened to him?

"Do you think we should-" I was interrupted by the sounds of shrieking and when I glanced back up at the cliff edge, James was missing and the girls were stepping away, looks of horror flashing across their faces.

"Oh, god!" Lily cried as Mary stumbled into her arms, and we all couldn't help but stare at the spot where James had been standing only moments before.

"James?" Sirius yelled down, laughing as he moved closer to the edge, horriby off-balance as he peered down for our friend in the freezing water so far below. "James, are you down there? Hey...hey, Jamie, come on!"

He was _very _close to the edge, and I was beginning to grow nervous; sober, Sirius could probably walk a tight rope perfectly fine, but he had notoriously bad balance when drunk, and to be leaning so close to the drop…

I moved closer to grab the end of his shirt when Sirius, reckless idiotic Sirius, pitched forward and fell off the edge of the cliff with a shriek of surprise.

"Oh!" Annette gasped, and she ran over to figure out what had happened to her boyfriend, only to stumble and fall to her knees, rolling very close to where Sirius had just been standing.

Just then, Remus came stumbling up the path, grinning when he saw me; I stepped around him to get to Annette, focusing on her heavy, terrified sounding breathing as she lay in something akin to the fetal position, mumbling in confusion.

"Wa-wai'," Remus mumbled, gripping my elbow as I rushed to help her. "Wa-wai'. Whe' di' Sirius an' James go? Wha's happenin'?"

I could smell alcohol on his breath as I pushed James aside, making eye contact with Lily, who was the only other mostly sober one here.

She nodded and hurried over to Annette, pulling her away from the edge of the cliff, explaining that we were just going to go down to the water below, and everything would be okay, if Annette only just moved away from the edge.

Laying on the cliff edge, I peered down to see if I could find James or Sirius below, but the water was picking up as the tide rose, and I couldn't even make out where the shore was supposed to be.

"Oh, fuck!" I heard Remus yell behind me, presumably now caught up on what had happened while he was still making his way up here. "Oh, fuck, fuck, fuck! Wha' do we do?"

"We have to go down to the bottom," I told Lily as I slowly stood back up, quickly getting as far away from the cliff edge as I could. "We have to walk down there, now, or something might happen to James and Sirius."

"But what about the others?" she asked me, and I looked around at our other friends, who were all drunk and confused.

What _were _we going to do, with dazed friends on the top of the cliff, where they could get hurt, and friends in the water below, also drunk and probably struggling to breathe in the freezing water, without anyone to rescue them?

_What were we going to do? What was _I _supposed to do?_

In the end, when we looked back on it all, had any of the mess we'd gotten into really ever been worth it?


End file.
